on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list
I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback. The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows: 1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research. 2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education. Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists: a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell. Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list. (For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.) This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context. It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non-research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts-related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background. -- Benjamin L. Russell --- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Cc: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list has a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this case you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so that we can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your proposal. But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and why haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that isn't clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or people *learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether haskell-cafe shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get. Discussion should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org.
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students.
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Since John Peterson recommended that I request you to set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you please set it whenever you have free time, as follows:
Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing List: Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> wrote:
From: John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> Subject: RE: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM Hi Benjamin,
There's no problem starting a new mailing list. Simon Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if you drop him and email he'll do the setup for Haskell.org. Once the list is going, you can go into the wiki and add it to the appropriate pages.
We've had a bunch of these special interest lists and most of them go dead after a few months but you never know ...
John
--- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM Greetings,
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. (This message is being addressed to you because I had already sent the portion below twice to other administrators at Haskell.org, first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then to simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not received a response on either occasion.)
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
So far, I have received three positive responses on starting the new Haskell-Edu mailing list, and no negative responses. In the latest response, the respondent suggested that I post another message to this mailing list advising readers on how to react. Basically, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, Simon Marlow, had originally suggested that I ask for feedback on my idea from this mailing list, and wait for the discussion to proceed to Haskell-Cafe, so for those interested in this idea, please respond either in this thread or, after a few rounds, in Haskell-Cafe on whether you agree, disagree, feel neutral, or have mixed feelings regarding this idea. In any case, as the above-mentioned respondent suggested, rapid responses to questions on the new mailing list will probably prove vital to keeping it alive. Participation by educators using Haskell, once Haskell-Edu is started, would be most welcome. Please post your responses initially in this thread. After a few rounds, this discussion will probably move to Haskell-Cafe. -- Benjamin L. Russell --- On Tue, 7/1/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: [Haskell] on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list To: "The Haskell Mailing List" <haskell@haskell.org> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 8:37 PM I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists:
a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions
b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell.
Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list.
(For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.)
This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context.
It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non-research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts-related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Cc: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list has a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this case you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so that we can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your proposal. But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and why haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that isn't clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or people *learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether haskell-cafe shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get. Discussion should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org.
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students.
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Since John Peterson recommended that I request you to set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you please set it whenever you have free time, as follows:
Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing List: Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> wrote:
From: John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> Subject: RE: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM Hi Benjamin,
There's no problem starting a new mailing list. Simon Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if you drop him and email he'll do the setup for Haskell.org. Once the list is going, you can go into the wiki and add it to the appropriate pages.
We've had a bunch of these special interest lists and most of them go dead after a few months but you never know ...
John
--- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM Greetings,
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. (This message is being addressed to you because I had already sent the portion below twice to other administrators at Haskell.org, first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then to simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not received a response on either occasion.)
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
FYI there is precedent for this kind of thing in the functional programming world. PLT Scheme has a Scheme mailing list and also a Scheme-in-education mailing list, which tackles the problems of trying to teach Scheme to new programmers. If you start such a mailing list for Haskell, I'd like to be on it. Mike Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
So far, I have received three positive responses on starting the new Haskell-Edu mailing list, and no negative responses.
In the latest response, the respondent suggested that I post another message to this mailing list advising readers on how to react. Basically, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, Simon Marlow, had originally suggested that I ask for feedback on my idea from this mailing list, and wait for the discussion to proceed to Haskell-Cafe, so for those interested in this idea, please respond either in this thread or, after a few rounds, in Haskell-Cafe on whether you agree, disagree, feel neutral, or have mixed feelings regarding this idea.
In any case, as the above-mentioned respondent suggested, rapid responses to questions on the new mailing list will probably prove vital to keeping it alive. Participation by educators using Haskell, once Haskell-Edu is started, would be most welcome.
Please post your responses initially in this thread. After a few rounds, this discussion will probably move to Haskell-Cafe.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Tue, 7/1/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: [Haskell] on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list To: "The Haskell Mailing List" <haskell@haskell.org> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 8:37 PM I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists:
a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions
b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell.
Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list.
(For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.)
This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context.
It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non-research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts-related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Cc: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list has a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this case you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so that we can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your proposal. But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and why haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that isn't clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or people *learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether haskell-cafe shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get. Discussion should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org. My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell. Since John Peterson recommended that I request you to set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you please set it whenever you have free time, as follows: Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing List: Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community? Thank you very much for your time and cooperation. Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> wrote:
From: John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> Subject: RE: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM Hi Benjamin,
There's no problem starting a new mailing list. Simon Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if you drop him and email he'll do the setup for Haskell.org. Once the list is going, you can go into the wiki and add it to the appropriate pages.
We've had a bunch of these special interest lists and most of them go dead after a few months but you never know ...
John --- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM Greetings,
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. (This message is being addressed to you because I had already sent the portion below twice to other administrators at Haskell.org, first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then to simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not received a response on either occasion.)
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community? Thank you very much for your time and cooperation. Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:58:08 -0700, Michael Vanier <mvanier@cs.caltech.edu> wrote:
FYI there is precedent for this kind of thing in the functional programming world. PLT Scheme has a Scheme mailing list and also a Scheme-in-education mailing list, which tackles the problems of trying to teach Scheme to new programmers. If you start such a mailing list for Haskell, I'd like to be on it.
Thank you for your response. It is interesting that you should mention PLT Scheme in particular, because my idea was actually indirectly influenced by the education-oriented culture on the plt-scheme mailing list, where I also participate. I use both Hugs (in addition to GHC) and DrScheme frequently in studying Haskell and Scheme, and often write equivalent programs in both Haskell and Scheme. The two main functional programming languages that I studied in college were Scheme and Haskell as well. Having seen the usefulness of Scheme in studying programming as part of a liberal arts education there, I wondered whether Haskell could not also fulfill this role. I saw no reason that it couldn't. However, over the last six months or so, I noticed that the same kind of beginner-level questions on both languages tended to generate quite different responses on plt-scheme and haskell-cafe. Most of the people there are educators, as opposed to researchers, and they tend to be less impatient and more responsive to beginner-level questions on the language, but there is less discussion there of research-level topics. It seemed that beginner-level discussion and research-level discussion were each better served by different audiences, and that beginner-level questions tended to bore and irritate researchers, while research-level discussion tended to intimidate and weed out beginners, particularly those either lacking mathematical sophistication or who did not write in a formal, academic style. This distinction seemed to become especially significant in mathematical topics. Thus, I perceived a need for a less research-oriented, more liberal arts-oriented discussion forum for educators and beginner-level students of Haskell. This is what led to my proposal. As an aside, these two languages seem to have an indirect influence on each other. For example, recently, a variety of Scheme called "Typed Scheme" has appeared (as a part of PLT Scheme), whose syntax loosely resembles Haskell. Originally, it did not have type signatures, but these were added later, most likely as a result of influence from either Haskell or a very similar typed functional programming language. On the other hand, in the paper "A History of Haskell: Being Lazy With Class" (http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/history-of-haskell/history.pdf), the authors quote (on page 3) an anonymous reviewer as writing the following:
"An interesting sidelight is that the Friedman and Wise paper ["Cons should not evaluate its arguments" (Friedman and Wise, 1976)] inspired Sussman and Steele to examine lazy evaluation in Scheme, and for a time they weighed whether to make the revised version of Scheme call-by-name or call-by-value. They eventually chose to retain the original call-by-value design, reasoning that it seemed much easier to simulate call-by-name in a call-by-value language (using lambda-expressions as thunks) than to simulate call-by-value in a call-by-name language (which requires a separate evaluation-forcing mechanism). Whatever we might think of that reasoning, we can only speculate on how different the academic programming-language landscape might be today had they made the opposite decision."
The influence of Scheme and the participation of Gerry Sussman in early academic conferences in the evolution of functional programming is also mentioned in several other places in that paper on Haskell. In addition, the HaskellWiki page on "Continuation" (http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Continuation) specifically cites Haskellized Scheme examples from Wikipedia. All this has led me to believe that Haskell should be fully capable of fulfilling a non-strict, purely functional alternative of Scheme, based on the simply typed, rather than the untyped, lambda calculus, in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts curriculum, too. But first, we probably need an appropriate mailing list for this kind of discussion. -- Benjamin L. Russell
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
So far, I have received three positive responses on starting the new Haskell-Edu mailing list, and no negative responses.
In the latest response, the respondent suggested that I post another message to this mailing list advising readers on how to react. Basically, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, Simon Marlow, had originally suggested that I ask for feedback on my idea from this mailing list, and wait for the discussion to proceed to Haskell-Cafe, so for those interested in this idea, please respond either in this thread or, after a few rounds, in Haskell-Cafe on whether you agree, disagree, feel neutral, or have mixed feelings regarding this idea.
In any case, as the above-mentioned respondent suggested, rapid responses to questions on the new mailing list will probably prove vital to keeping it alive. Participation by educators using Haskell, once Haskell-Edu is started, would be most welcome.
Please post your responses initially in this thread. After a few rounds, this discussion will probably move to Haskell-Cafe.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Tue, 7/1/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: [Haskell] on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list To: "The Haskell Mailing List" <haskell@haskell.org> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 8:37 PM I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists:
a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions
b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell.
Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list.
(For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.)
This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context.
It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non-research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts-related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Cc: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list has a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this case you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so that we can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your proposal. But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and why haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that isn't clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or people *learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether haskell-cafe shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get. Discussion should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org. My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell. Since John Peterson recommended that I request you to set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you please set it whenever you have free time, as follows: Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing List: Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community? Thank you very much for your time and cooperation. Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> wrote:
From: John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> Subject: RE: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM Hi Benjamin,
There's no problem starting a new mailing list. Simon Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if you drop him and email he'll do the setup for Haskell.org. Once the list is going, you can go into the wiki and add it to the appropriate pages.
We've had a bunch of these special interest lists and most of them go dead after a few months but you never know ...
John --- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM Greetings,
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. (This message is being addressed to you because I had already sent the portion below twice to other administrators at Haskell.org, first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then to simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not received a response on either occasion.)
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community? Thank you very much for your time and cooperation. Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Just one nit to pick: AFAIK Haskell's type system is _way_ beyond simply typed lambda calculus, and is closer to system F (experts can weigh in here). Not that this invalidates any of your other points. Also, I surmise that a big reason Scheme went the strict route is that it made it much easier to handle side-effecting computations. Mike Benjamin L.Russell wrote:
On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:58:08 -0700, Michael Vanier <mvanier@cs.caltech.edu> wrote:
FYI there is precedent for this kind of thing in the functional programming world. PLT Scheme has a Scheme mailing list and also a Scheme-in-education mailing list, which tackles the problems of trying to teach Scheme to new programmers. If you start such a mailing list for Haskell, I'd like to be on it.
Thank you for your response.
It is interesting that you should mention PLT Scheme in particular, because my idea was actually indirectly influenced by the education-oriented culture on the plt-scheme mailing list, where I also participate. I use both Hugs (in addition to GHC) and DrScheme frequently in studying Haskell and Scheme, and often write equivalent programs in both Haskell and Scheme. The two main functional programming languages that I studied in college were Scheme and Haskell as well.
Having seen the usefulness of Scheme in studying programming as part of a liberal arts education there, I wondered whether Haskell could not also fulfill this role. I saw no reason that it couldn't.
However, over the last six months or so, I noticed that the same kind of beginner-level questions on both languages tended to generate quite different responses on plt-scheme and haskell-cafe. Most of the people there are educators, as opposed to researchers, and they tend to be less impatient and more responsive to beginner-level questions on the language, but there is less discussion there of research-level topics. It seemed that beginner-level discussion and research-level discussion were each better served by different audiences, and that beginner-level questions tended to bore and irritate researchers, while research-level discussion tended to intimidate and weed out beginners, particularly those either lacking mathematical sophistication or who did not write in a formal, academic style. This distinction seemed to become especially significant in mathematical topics.
Thus, I perceived a need for a less research-oriented, more liberal arts-oriented discussion forum for educators and beginner-level students of Haskell. This is what led to my proposal.
As an aside, these two languages seem to have an indirect influence on each other. For example, recently, a variety of Scheme called "Typed Scheme" has appeared (as a part of PLT Scheme), whose syntax loosely resembles Haskell. Originally, it did not have type signatures, but these were added later, most likely as a result of influence from either Haskell or a very similar typed functional programming language.
On the other hand, in the paper "A History of Haskell: Being Lazy With Class" (http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/history-of-haskell/history.pdf), the authors quote (on page 3) an anonymous reviewer as writing the following:
"An interesting sidelight is that the Friedman and Wise paper ["Cons should not evaluate its arguments" (Friedman and Wise, 1976)] inspired Sussman and Steele to examine lazy evaluation in Scheme, and for a time they weighed whether to make the revised version of Scheme call-by-name or call-by-value. They eventually chose to retain the original call-by-value design, reasoning that it seemed much easier to simulate call-by-name in a call-by-value language (using lambda-expressions as thunks) than to simulate call-by-value in a call-by-name language (which requires a separate evaluation-forcing mechanism). Whatever we might think of that reasoning, we can only speculate on how different the academic programming-language landscape might be today had they made the opposite decision."
The influence of Scheme and the participation of Gerry Sussman in early academic conferences in the evolution of functional programming is also mentioned in several other places in that paper on Haskell.
In addition, the HaskellWiki page on "Continuation" (http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Continuation) specifically cites Haskellized Scheme examples from Wikipedia.
All this has led me to believe that Haskell should be fully capable of fulfilling a non-strict, purely functional alternative of Scheme, based on the simply typed, rather than the untyped, lambda calculus, in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts curriculum, too.
But first, we probably need an appropriate mailing list for this kind of discussion.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
So far, I have received three positive responses on starting the new Haskell-Edu mailing list, and no negative responses.
In the latest response, the respondent suggested that I post another message to this mailing list advising readers on how to react. Basically, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, Simon Marlow, had originally suggested that I ask for feedback on my idea from this mailing list, and wait for the discussion to proceed to Haskell-Cafe, so for those interested in this idea, please respond either in this thread or, after a few rounds, in Haskell-Cafe on whether you agree, disagree, feel neutral, or have mixed feelings regarding this idea.
In any case, as the above-mentioned respondent suggested, rapid responses to questions on the new mailing list will probably prove vital to keeping it alive. Participation by educators using Haskell, once Haskell-Edu is started, would be most welcome.
Please post your responses initially in this thread. After a few rounds, this discussion will probably move to Haskell-Cafe.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Tue, 7/1/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: [Haskell] on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list To: "The Haskell Mailing List" <haskell@haskell.org> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 8:37 PM I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists:
a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions
b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell.
Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list.
(For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.)
This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context.
It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non-research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts-related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Cc: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list has a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this case you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so that we can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your proposal. But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and why haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that isn't clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or people *learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether haskell-cafe shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get. Discussion should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org. My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell. Since John Peterson recommended that I request you to set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you please set it whenever you have free time, as follows: Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing List: Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community? Thank you very much for your time and cooperation. Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> wrote: > From: John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> > Subject: RE: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list > To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> > Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM > Hi Benjamin, > > There's no problem starting a new mailing list. Simon > Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if you drop him > and email he'll do the setup for Haskell.org. Once the > list is going, you can go into the wiki and add it to the > appropriate pages. > > We've had a bunch of these special interest lists and > most of them go dead after a few months but you never know > ... > > > John --- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote: > From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> > Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list > To: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> > Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM > Greetings, > > My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in > starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to > call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research > beginner-level educational matters, guided by the > philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to > non-computer science major students. (This message is > being addressed to you because I had already sent the > portion below twice to other administrators at Haskell.org, > first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then to > simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not received a response > on either occasion.) > > This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing > lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe > for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to > announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. > Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic > and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an > unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors > interested in learning Haskell. > > Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start > this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or > just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing > list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the > "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" > (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the > benefit of other members of the Haskell community? > Thank you very much for your time and cooperation. > Sincerely yours, > > Benjamin L. Russell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
I would certainly join such a list. My only concer would be that moderating such a list could be tricky. How do you judge when a discussion has become "too technical"? And what do you do about it? Force the members to take it to -cafe? Anyway, I like the idea of having a more beginner-friendly list, and have suggested something similar for the IRC channel multiple times. On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 3:39 AM, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
So far, I have received three positive responses on starting the new Haskell-Edu mailing list, and no negative responses.
In the latest response, the respondent suggested that I post another message to this mailing list advising readers on how to react. Basically, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, Simon Marlow, had originally suggested that I ask for feedback on my idea from this mailing list, and wait for the discussion to proceed to Haskell-Cafe, so for those interested in this idea, please respond either in this thread or, after a few rounds, in Haskell-Cafe on whether you agree, disagree, feel neutral, or have mixed feelings regarding this idea.
In any case, as the above-mentioned respondent suggested, rapid responses to questions on the new mailing list will probably prove vital to keeping it alive. Participation by educators using Haskell, once Haskell-Edu is started, would be most welcome.
Please post your responses initially in this thread. After a few rounds, this discussion will probably move to Haskell-Cafe.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Tue, 7/1/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: [Haskell] on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list To: "The Haskell Mailing List" <haskell@haskell.org> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 8:37 PM I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists:
a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions
b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell.
Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list.
(For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.)
This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context.
It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non-research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts-related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Cc: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list has a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this case you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so that we can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your proposal. But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and why haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that isn't clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or people *learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether haskell-cafe shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get. Discussion should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org.
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students.
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Since John Peterson recommended that I request you to set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you please set it whenever you have free time, as follows:
Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing List: Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> wrote:
From: John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> Subject: RE: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM Hi Benjamin,
There's no problem starting a new mailing list. Simon Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if you drop him and email he'll do the setup for Haskell.org. Once the list is going, you can go into the wiki and add it to the appropriate pages.
We've had a bunch of these special interest lists and most of them go dead after a few months but you never know ...
John
--- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM Greetings,
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. (This message is being addressed to you because I had already sent the portion below twice to other administrators at Haskell.org, first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then to simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not received a response on either occasion.)
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Hi Benjamin. I think this is a great idea, for all the reasons you mention. Starting this fall I will be teaching a two-term computer music course based on Haskore and HasSound (Haskell libraries for computer music), and I would love to have an on-line forum that I could recommend to my students, some of whom will not be hard-core computer science majors. Thanks for initiating this. -Paul Hudak Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
So far, I have received three positive responses on starting the new Haskell-Edu mailing list, and no negative responses.
In the latest response, the respondent suggested that I post another message to this mailing list advising readers on how to react. Basically, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, Simon Marlow, had originally suggested that I ask for feedback on my idea from this mailing list, and wait for the discussion to proceed to Haskell-Cafe, so for those interested in this idea, please respond either in this thread or, after a few rounds, in Haskell-Cafe on whether you agree, disagree, feel neutral, or have mixed feelings regarding this idea.
In any case, as the above-mentioned respondent suggested, rapid responses to questions on the new mailing list will probably prove vital to keeping it alive. Participation by educators using Haskell, once Haskell-Edu is started, would be most welcome.
Please post your responses initially in this thread. After a few rounds, this discussion will probably move to Haskell-Cafe.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Tue, 7/1/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: [Haskell] on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list To: "The Haskell Mailing List" <haskell@haskell.org> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 8:37 PM I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists:
a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions
b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell.
Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list.
(For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.)
This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context.
It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non-research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts-related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing
list
To: "Benjamin L. Russell"
<dekudekuplex@yahoo.com>
Cc: "John Peterson"
<jpeterson@western.edu>
Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list
has
a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this
case
you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so
that we
can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your
proposal.
But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and
why
haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that
isn't
clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or
people
*learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether
haskell-cafe
shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get.
Discussion
should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail
message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org.
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am
interested in
starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan
to call
Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students.
This topic is not covered by any of the other
mailing
lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and
Haskell-Cafe
for the past six months or so, but the former is
devoted to
announcements, and the latter de facto to research
matters.
Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly
academic
and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science
majors
interested in learning Haskell.
Since John Peterson recommended that I request
you to
set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you
please
set it whenever you have free time, as follows:
Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing
List:
Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education
Could you please advise me on what I need to do
to
start this mailing list? Should I host it on
haskell.org,
or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org
mailing
list service? Also, how should I have it listed in
the
"www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and
cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson
<jpeterson@western.edu> wrote:
From: John Peterson
<jpeterson@western.edu>
Subject: RE: on starting a new
Haskell-related
mailing list
To: "Benjamin L. Russell"
<dekudekuplex@yahoo.com>
Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM Hi Benjamin,
There's no problem starting a new mailing
list. Simon
Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if
you
drop him
and email he'll do the setup for
Haskell.org.
Once the
list is going, you can go into the wiki and
add it
to the
appropriate pages.
We've had a bunch of these special
interest
lists and
most of them go dead after a few months but
you
never know
...
John
--- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell
<dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell
<dekudekuplex@yahoo.com>
Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related
mailing
list
To: "John Peterson"
<jpeterson@western.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM Greetings,
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am
interested in
starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which
I
plan to
call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to
non-research
beginner-level educational matters, guided by
the
philosophy that Haskell should be more
accessible
to
non-computer science major students. (This
message is
being addressed to you because I had already
sent
the
portion below twice to other administrators
at
Haskell.org,
first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then
to
simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not
received a
response
on either occasion.)
This topic is not covered by any of the other
mailing
lists. I have regularly read both Haskell
and
Haskell-Cafe
for the past six months or so, but the former
is
devoted to
announcements, and the latter de facto to
research
matters.
Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is
overly
academic
and research-oriented, and I feel that this
creates an
unnecessary learning curve for non-computer
science majors
interested in learning Haskell.
Could you please advise me on what I need to
do to
start
this mailing list? Should I host it on
haskell.org, or
just start it by myself using a
non-Haskell.org
mailing
list service? Also, how should I have it
listed
in the
"www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo)
page for
the
benefit of other members of the Haskell
community?
Thank you very much for your time and
cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
On Jul 1, 2008, at 1:37 PM, Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
Currently, there are two main Haskell mailing lists:
a) The Haskell Mailing List, currently used mainly for announcements and for non-beginner discussions
b) The Haskell-Cafe, currently ostensibly used for everything else, but in fact used primarily for serious academic computer-science research-oriented discussion of the language Haskell.
Neither mailing list addresses Haskell as a tool for teaching functional programming as part of a liberal arts education, and while The Haskell Cafe is ostensibly responsible for addressing beginner questions, I have witnessed several instances in which new users who were not familiar with the academic culture of The Haskell Cafe have been frowned upon for either posting messages that did not assume enough mathematical background, or for posting messages that were written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and that therefore did not fit into the serious tone of the mailing list.
(For example, a few months ago, one poster received a private e-mail message from another poster asking the former not to "pollute" The Haskell-Cafe Mailing List for assuming that screen pixel resolution was somehow related to the precision of an algorithm that picked points randomly from a square in approximating pi. Avoiding this question required the knowledge that screen resolution could be considered independently from the precision of the algorithm itself, but while this point may be elementary to mathematicians and researchers, the poster was not familiar enough with the issue to grasp this immediately, and received the above-mentioned response.)
This new mailing list is intended to cover both the issue of teaching Haskell as part of a liberal arts curriculum, and of answering beginner questions about Haskell from students who may not have a sophisticated mathematics background. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be educators and students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. Currently, the language Scheme is often used in this context (even though Scheme is not a true functional programming language), but Haskell has recently been gaining ground rapidly as a programming language in industry as well, and many students of Haskell may either not have a computer science background, or may not have a sophisticated mathematical background. Posts from such users may tend to irritate serious researchers, who are impatient and hard-pressed for time to find valuable information to aid their research, but may be welcome in a more education-focused context.
It would seem that creating a new mailing list, Haskell-Edu, focusing on using Haskell in teaching programming in a liberal arts context, and fielding questions from students in that context, would help increase the scope of Haskell users, and help spread knowledge about Haskell to potential future users in industry. Teachers in a liberal arts curriculum could discuss teaching Haskell in a non- research context, and students of Haskell with a liberal arts- related background would be able to ask elementary questions to educators willing to discuss such questions, without being expected to have a sophisticated mathematical or computer science background.
Hi all, I am all for a separate channel or resource for beginners in Haskell. I can imagine that even the run-of-the-mill discussions in the existing venues will scare them off. It might also be a good place for educators and students to talk about their experiences in teaching and being taught Haskell. E.g., what kind of assignments work, which don't. Also it will give me a venue to bring Helium to the attention of these beginners and their educators. I am currently bringing the Helium compiler up to speed (but this is not a formal announcement). However, if you simply cannot wait, set your browser to http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Helium . cheers, Jur
--- On Sat, 6/28/08, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> Subject: Re: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Cc: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 4:20 AM Hi Benjamin,
Normally we create new mailing lists when the new list has a narrow focus and covers a clearly unoccupied niche. In this case you're proposing a list that is very broad, and so I think it needs discussion amongst the community before we create the list, so that we can keep a consistent strategy.
That's not to say that I disagree with your proposal. But it doesn't seem immediately clear what the focus would be, and why haskell-cafe shouldn't serve the purpose. One thing that isn't clear is whether the list you're proposing is for people interested in *teaching* Haskell (in which case I'd say it's a great idea), or people *learning* Haskell (in which case I'd consider carefully whether haskell-cafe shoudn't be serving that need). That's something you need to clarify when proposing this list to the community.
So I suggest you send this proposal out to haskell@haskell.org in the first instance, and see what response you get. Discussion should move to haskell-cafe quickly.
Cheers, Simon
Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Greetings,
John Peterson suggested that I send you an e-mail message requesting you to perform set-up of a new Haskell-related mailing list that I plan to moderate/administrate, since he said that you are the administrator of the mailing lists on Haskell.org.
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students.
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Since John Peterson recommended that I request you to set-up the mailing list on Haskell.org, could you please set it whenever you have free time, as follows:
Name of Mailing List: Haskell-Edu E-mail Address: haskell-edu@haskell.org Description: The Haskell-Edu Mailing List: Discussion About Non-research Issues on Haskell in Education
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
--- On Fri, 6/27/08, John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> wrote:
From: John Peterson <jpeterson@western.edu> Subject: RE: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM Hi Benjamin,
There's no problem starting a new mailing list. Simon Marlow is the administrator of our lists - if you drop him and email he'll do the setup for Haskell.org. Once the list is going, you can go into the wiki and add it to the appropriate pages.
We've had a bunch of these special interest lists and most of them go dead after a few months but you never know ...
John
--- On Thu, 6/26/08, Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Benjamin L. Russell <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com> Subject: on starting a new Haskell-related mailing list To: "John Peterson" <jpeterson@western.edu> Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 4:37 PM Greetings,
My name is Benjamin L. Russell, and I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell, which I plan to call Haskell-Edu, specifically devoted to non-research beginner-level educational matters, guided by the philosophy that Haskell should be more accessible to non-computer science major students. (This message is being addressed to you because I had already sent the portion below twice to other administrators at Haskell.org, first to mailman-owner@haskell.org, and then to simonmarhaskell@gmail.com, but had not received a response on either occasion.)
This topic is not covered by any of the other mailing lists. I have regularly read both Haskell and Haskell-Cafe for the past six months or so, but the former is devoted to announcements, and the latter de facto to research matters. Also, the general tone of Haskell-Cafe is overly academic and research-oriented, and I feel that this creates an unnecessary learning curve for non-computer science majors interested in learning Haskell.
Could you please advise me on what I need to do to start this mailing list? Should I host it on haskell.org, or just start it by myself using a non-Haskell.org mailing list service? Also, how should I have it listed in the "www.haskell.org Mailing Lists" (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo) page for the benefit of other members of the Haskell community?
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Benjamin L. Russell
Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Benjamin L. Russell:
I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
The Haskell community seems to be growing quickly and clearly becomes more diverse. So, a mailing list aimed at users with less experience and/or a non-computing, non-math background makes sense to me. Whether you will be able to gather a critical mass of knowledgeable people who are happy to answer questions on the list is hard to answer without trying your idea. But mailing lists are cheap. So, I'd say, let's give it a try and see whether it works. In any case, it'd be important to describe the purpose of the list at http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Mailing_lists properly to make clear which discussions should go to which list. Manuel
Manuel M T Chakravarty wrote:
Benjamin L. Russell:
I am interested in starting a new mailing list on Haskell.org, aimed mainly at liberal arts teachers and elementary-level learners of Haskell, called "Haskell-Edu: The Haskell Educational Mailing List." This new mailing list would be guided by the principle that Haskell is useful not just in research, but also in teaching programming as part of a liberal arts education, on a par with Scheme. When I suggested the idea of this mailing list to Simon Marlow, the Haskell.org mailing list administrator, he suggested that I post this idea on The Haskell Mailing List, so I am posting it here to ask for feedback.
The main purposes of this new (proposed) mailing list would be as follows:
1) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of users wishing to focus on the uses of Haskell in education, such as in high school and in introductory computer science college courses, as opposed to in research.
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
The Haskell community seems to be growing quickly and clearly becomes more diverse. So, a mailing list aimed at users with less experience and/or a non-computing, non-math background makes sense to me.
Whether you will be able to gather a critical mass of knowledgeable people who are happy to answer questions on the list is hard to answer without trying your idea. But mailing lists are cheap. So, I'd say, let's give it a try and see whether it works. In any case, it'd be important to describe the purpose of the list at
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Mailing_lists
properly to make clear which discussions should go to which list.
My main concern here is that the remit for the new list is not clear enough. I can see a potential need for two lists: * a list for discussion related to teaching Haskell; * a list devoted to those learning Haskell, with a less research- oriented feel than haskell-cafe. it's not obvious to me that both of those needs should be served by a single list. I believe it's important that the mailing lists served by haskell.org should have clear non-overlapping topics. So I suggest that we add haskell-edu for the purposes of discussing the use and teaching of Haskell in education. For the second point above, I'd be inclined not to add a new list, but I don't feel that strongly - if there's a concensus in favour of adding haskell-beginners (for example), that would be fine. Cheers, Simon
Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> writes:
My main concern here is that the remit for the new list is not clear enough. I can see a potential need for two lists:
* a list for discussion related to teaching Haskell;
* a list devoted to those learning Haskell, with a less research- oriented feel than haskell-cafe.
it's not obvious to me that both of those needs should be served by a single list. I believe it's important that the mailing lists served by haskell.org should have clear non-overlapping topics.
Another concern might be that there currently isn't a lot of discussion about the first topic on the existing mailing lists. IMHO, this may make it unlikely that the list will gather critical mass to keep rolling. There's a ton of more specific lists at http://gmane.org/find.php?list=haskell , yet almost none have any volume to speak of, the exception is highly specialized lists where people in the know (ghc developers, summer of code particpants) subscribe. As for beginners, there are occasional beginner questions on haskell-cafe, but not in such volume that it is detrimental to the existing lists. I'm not so worried about old-timers not subscribing to it (you all seem pretty service minded), but I worry that we'll just keep polluting existing lists with messages telling people to repost their question to haskell-beginners instead. IMHO, we might as well just use the existing lists for both of these. If the perceived problem is the high-brow stuff scaring newbies off, it's better to add a new list for that topic. -k -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
Ketil Malde wrote:
IMHO, we might as well just use the existing lists for both of these. If the perceived problem is the high-brow stuff scaring newbies off, it's better to add a new list for that topic.
rather difficult, because beginner questions can easily spiral into curiosity about quite theoretical stuff, with no clear point of separation. And I'm not sure we want to avoid having that kind of curiosity, but I suppose it might always intimidate some newbies: a predicament I'm not sure we can solve by a mere technical measure of splitting up lists. when I was a newbie I was intimidated by the sheer volume of Haskell-Cafe, never mind whether I could understand it or not :-) but also the relatively few amount of beginner questions with beginner answers when looking in the list archives, probably made me less sure whether my questions would belong there. -Isaac
On Sat, 5 Jul 2008, Isaac Dupree wrote:
rather difficult, because beginner questions can easily spiral into curiosity about quite theoretical stuff, with no clear point of separation. And I'm not sure we want to avoid having that kind of curiosity, but I suppose it might always intimidate some newbies: a predicament I'm not sure we can solve by a mere technical measure of splitting up lists.
On a newbie list, it's easier to remember to give more of a beginner's guide to tough topics - or to point out when 'teachers' should take it to -cafe.
when I was a newbie I was intimidated by the sheer volume of Haskell-Cafe, never mind whether I could understand it or not :-) but also the relatively few amount of beginner questions with beginner answers when looking in the list archives, probably made me less sure whether my questions would belong there.
That's another good reason for such a list. I suspect a good many "why are things like this?" questions would be better handled somewhere like that, too. -- flippa@flippac.org Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Most of the time you just get burnt worse though.
Simon Marlow wrote:
My main concern here is that the remit for the new list is not clear enough. I can see a potential need for two lists:
* a list for discussion related to teaching Haskell;
* a list devoted to those learning Haskell, with a less research- oriented feel than haskell-cafe.
it's not obvious to me that both of those needs should be served by a single list. I believe it's important that the mailing lists served by haskell.org should have clear non-overlapping topics.
So I suggest that we add haskell-edu for the purposes of discussing the use and teaching of Haskell in education. For the second point above, I'd be inclined not to add a new list, but I don't feel that strongly - if there's a concensus in favour of adding haskell-beginners (for example), that would be fine.
Cheers, Simon Using Simon's names, I think that there is a greater need for haskell-beginners than for haskell-edu. Despite the friendly people on haskell-cafe, it is very intimidating, and very busy (sadly, I've mostly stopped reading it for the latter reason). I don't think that haskell-cafe serves well at all as a forum for beginners, whereas it might serve just fine as a forum for instructors.
In any case, these are two distinct purposes, and I agree with Simon that it's probably unwise to have a single mailing list for both. I would vote for starting a haskell-beginners list and see how it goes. I think that a decent number of experienced people will chip in to answer questions (they don't have to be experts -- just good at explaining things), and in my experience beginners like to help fellow beginners -- i.e. it will sustain itself. I would also be interested in a haskell-edu list, but as I said before I don't think the demand for it is as great as that for haskell-beginners. By the way, the haskell-art mailing list is not very active, but it has served a useful role. I wonder if it would help to have a description of it (and any new lists that we create) to the descriptions at: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Mailing_lists -Paul Hudak
Please allow me to thank everybody for their feedback. So far, including the three private messages I have received, there have been the following responses on creating a new mailing list for Haskell: Haskell-Beginner (or Haskell-Edu for beginners): 8 votes Haskell-Edu (for teaching): 2 votes No new mailing lists: 1 vote Undecided: 1 vote So, 8/12 of the responses have been in favor of creating some kind of new mailing list for education, with 8/10 of those being in favor of creating a new list for beginners, and 2/10 of those being in favor of creating a new list for teachers. Other than that, 1/12 of the votes has been in favor of not creating a new list unless "the perceived problem is the high-brow stuff scaring newbies off," and 1/12 of the votes has been undecided. It seems that the consensus is in favor of creating some kind of new list for beginners, with a less urgent possibility of creating another new list for teachers. I would be happy to spend the time to administer the new mailing list if that is acceptable. The only issue is the name of the new list, though: it would seem a better idea to keep the name mnemonic and short, with the suffix following "Haskell-" within three or four characters. Typing "haskell-beginner@haskell.org" seems a bit of a hassle; "haskell-edu@haskell.org" seems much better. The only possible problem is that it would then make later creating a second list just for teachers more difficult, but this seems rather unlikely at the moment. Also, I doubt that a teachers-only list would be able to gather enough critical mass to stay alive, because then only teachers would participate. I don't see why teachers wouldn't be able to participate together with students in consulting each other as to what topics to offer in beginner courses. Therefore, I would suggest the following new mailing list. To save your time, may I suggest the following entries for the fields at "Create a haskell.org Mailing List" (http://haskell.org/mailman/create): Name of List: Haskell-Edu Initial list owner address: DekuDekuplex@Yahoo.com Auto-generate initial list password?: Yes Should new members be quarantined before they are allowed to post unmoderated to this list? No Initial list of supported languages. English (If possible, Japanese and French also, since I know several members of a local Haskell Category Theory user group in Tokyo who could also participate in such a list, and know the name of at least one professor in France who occasionally contributes to Haskell-related topics. Other relevant languages could also be welcome.) Send "list created" email to list owner? Yes In addition, for the "List" and "Description" columns at "haskell.org mailing lists - Admin Links", the following entries might be applicable: List: Haskell-Edu Description: Discussion about beginner questions and issues in teaching Haskell What do you think, Simon? -- Benjamin L. Russell (http://haskell.org/mailman/admin) On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:38:34 -0400, Paul Hudak <paul.hudak@yale.edu> wrote:
Simon Marlow wrote:
My main concern here is that the remit for the new list is not clear enough. I can see a potential need for two lists:
* a list for discussion related to teaching Haskell;
* a list devoted to those learning Haskell, with a less research- oriented feel than haskell-cafe.
it's not obvious to me that both of those needs should be served by a single list. I believe it's important that the mailing lists served by haskell.org should have clear non-overlapping topics.
So I suggest that we add haskell-edu for the purposes of discussing the use and teaching of Haskell in education. For the second point above, I'd be inclined not to add a new list, but I don't feel that strongly - if there's a concensus in favour of adding haskell-beginners (for example), that would be fine.
Cheers, Simon Using Simon's names, I think that there is a greater need for haskell-beginners than for haskell-edu. Despite the friendly people on haskell-cafe, it is very intimidating, and very busy (sadly, I've mostly stopped reading it for the latter reason). I don't think that haskell-cafe serves well at all as a forum for beginners, whereas it might serve just fine as a forum for instructors.
In any case, these are two distinct purposes, and I agree with Simon that it's probably unwise to have a single mailing list for both. I would vote for starting a haskell-beginners list and see how it goes. I think that a decent number of experienced people will chip in to answer questions (they don't have to be experts -- just good at explaining things), and in my experience beginners like to help fellow beginners -- i.e. it will sustain itself.
I would also be interested in a haskell-edu list, but as I said before I don't think the demand for it is as great as that for haskell-beginners.
By the way, the haskell-art mailing list is not very active, but it has served a useful role. I wonder if it would help to have a description of it (and any new lists that we create) to the descriptions at:
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Mailing_lists
-Paul Hudak
From previous experience with this sort of thing (the expansion of usage for a list(s)), I am thinking you guys have entered a territory better served by a forum. One subscription gets you access to the cafe, announcements, n00b section, teachers, core functions, etc. While a forum lacks the convenience of using your e-mail client, it does offer a better organization and clearer interface to where the information should be posted.
-w
On Jul 11, 2008, at 5:47 AM, Chad Wilson wrote:
From previous experience with this sort of thing (the expansion of usage for a list(s)), I am thinking you guys have entered a territory better served by a forum. One subscription gets you access to the cafe, announcements, n00b section, teachers, core functions, etc. While a forum lacks the convenience of using your e-mail client, it does offer a better organization and clearer interface to where the information should be posted.
Yes!! I participate in various lists and various forums. That Haskell uses lists has crippled my participation here; I am quite sure I am not alone. Nabble and the like do not substitute for real forum software. I know the counter-arguments in favor of lists, but most of us _do_ _not_ use an emacs mode for our email. Hasn't nearly everyone who does gone off to write their own Lisp? It truly boggles my mind that Haskell doesn't use a forum, but this is a discussion I gave up on entering, till the above message. Haskell wants to grow. Sticking to lists keeps it a "tree house" language. Now, we're so balkanized, I'd have to go back and rejoin the other Haskell lists I dropped, if I wanted to stir this up. Anyone else interested, who's on the other lists? Lurkers unite?
2008/7/11 Dave Bayer <bayer@cpw.math.columbia.edu>:
On Jul 11, 2008, at 5:47 AM, Chad Wilson wrote:
From previous experience with this sort of thing (the expansion of usage for a list(s)), I am thinking you guys have entered a territory better served by a forum. One subscription gets you access to the cafe, announcements, n00b section, teachers, core functions, etc. While a forum lacks the convenience of using your e-mail client, it does offer a better organization and clearer interface to where the information should be posted.
Yes!!
I participate in various lists and various forums. That Haskell uses lists has crippled my participation here; I am quite sure I am not alone. Nabble and the like do not substitute for real forum software.
I know the counter-arguments in favor of lists, but most of us _do_ _not_ use an emacs mode for our email. Hasn't nearly everyone who does gone off to write their own Lisp? It truly boggles my mind that Haskell doesn't use a forum, but this is a discussion I gave up on entering, till the above message.
Haskell wants to grow. Sticking to lists keeps it a "tree house" language.
Now, we're so balkanized, I'd have to go back and rejoin the other Haskell lists I dropped, if I wanted to stir this up. Anyone else interested, who's on the other lists?
Lurkers unite?
Hi, Well, in my opinion, annoucements a better served with a mailing list. Usage of an mailing list is "push" while forum is "pull". This is because I check my mails regardless I want to see haskell-related stuffs or not. Thus I can spot announces. This is why I kept registered on the haskell (and -cafe) mailing list(s). I don't use haskell regularly but want to keep me informed. This is even truer since I follow (like everybody I guess) many lists. Cheers, Thu
Dave Bayer wrote:
I participate in various lists and various forums. That Haskell uses lists has crippled my participation here; I am quite sure I am not alone. Nabble and the like do not substitute for real forum software.
I'm sure you're not alone, but I'm equally sure that there are many people like me whose participation would be crippled by any switch to a forum. And I don't use an emacs mode for my email, nor have I written my own Lisp. Given the growth in traffic on haskell-cafe, perhaps offering a forum *as well* would be a reasonable thing to do. There are now enough people around that having multiple venues for discussion wouldn't be too damaging. Ganesh ============================================================================== Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.credit-suisse.com/legal/en/disclaimer_email_ib.html ==============================================================================
On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 15:04 +0100, Sittampalam, Ganesh wrote:
Dave Bayer wrote:
I participate in various lists and various forums. That Haskell uses lists has crippled my participation here; I am quite sure I am not alone. Nabble and the like do not substitute for real forum software.
I'm sure you're not alone, but I'm equally sure that there are many people like me whose participation would be crippled by any switch to a forum. And I don't use an emacs mode for my email, nor have I written my own Lisp.
Given the growth in traffic on haskell-cafe, perhaps offering a forum *as well* would be a reasonable thing to do. There are now enough people around that having multiple venues for discussion wouldn't be too damaging.
+1 for *this*. jcc
Jonathan Cast wrote:
On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 15:04 +0100, Sittampalam, Ganesh wrote:
Dave Bayer wrote:
I participate in various lists and various forums. That Haskell uses lists has crippled my participation here; I am quite sure I am not alone. Nabble and the like do not substitute for real forum software. I'm sure you're not alone, but I'm equally sure that there are many people like me whose participation would be crippled by any switch to a forum. And I don't use an emacs mode for my email, nor have I written my own Lisp.
Given the growth in traffic on haskell-cafe, perhaps offering a forum *as well* would be a reasonable thing to do. There are now enough people around that having multiple venues for discussion wouldn't be too damaging.
+1 for *this*.
Absolutely; I'm sure it's been said in the past that it would be generally a good thing for someone to set up forums to be used in addition to the mailing lists. I'm probably amongst those that won't participate much in the forums because I find them frustratingly slow to navigate, but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't *have* forums at all. We just need someone to set it up and do the admin. Volunteers? Cheers, Simon
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:04:16 +0100, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
I'm probably amongst those that won't participate much in the forums because I find them frustratingly slow to navigate, but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't *have* forums at all. We just need someone to set it up and do the admin. Volunteers?
Count me in as a volunteer for the admin, please. -- Benjamin L. Russell
I forgot to mention that I used to be a moderator for a discussion forum at MetroMac.org, a New York Macintosh user group. Then one day a cracker came along, deleted all the posts of *all* the users (and the backups!), and somehow figured out how to removed my moderator privileges in the database as well. (The owners of that site needed a scapegoat, so they blamed *me* for being the direct target of the attack (I have no idea why), and didn't restore my moderator privileges. Since they had lost all their posts as well, they then needed to spend countless hours building a new forum and trying to gain back readership, a situation which made they extremely frustrated and angry. They did give me a free Supporting Member account, which normally costs USD $20/year, for one year, but that was all. They also forbade me from posting many new posts in direct succession in other forums to make up for the lost posts, perhaps in fear that that could somehow risk another cracker attack.) If a new forum is created, I strongly recommend that mail message copies of all posts also be sent, and that *off-site* backups be made frequently. Web discussion forums are much more susceptible to cracker attacks than mailing lists unless e-mail messages of all posts are also sent, because the posts are normally stored in a database. However, if you do need somebody to moderate/administer the forum, I may be able to pick up quickly on the details, since I do have experience as a moderator. -- Benjamin L. Russell On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:38:07 +0900, Benjamin L.Russell <DekuDekuplex@Yahoo.com> wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:04:16 +0100, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
I'm probably amongst those that won't participate much in the forums because I find them frustratingly slow to navigate, but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't *have* forums at all. We just need someone to set it up and do the admin. Volunteers?
Count me in as a volunteer for the admin, please.
-- Benjamin L. Russell
I participate in various lists and various forums. That Haskell uses lists has crippled my participation here; I am quite sure I am not alone. Nabble and the like do not substitute for real forum software.
Funny, it's the first time I hear the argument in this direction. The only forums I read are those for which there's no newsgroup/mailing-list: not only are forums poor UI-wise (IMO, obviously), but also their content is generally much worse. It generally looks very much like "the blind leading the blind".
but most of us _do_ _not_ use an Emacs mode for our email. Hasn't nearly everyone who does gone off to write their own Lisp?
;-) Stefan "Emacs maintainer"
On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 08:47 -0400, Chad Wilson wrote:
From previous experience with this sort of thing (the expansion of usage for a list(s)), I am thinking you guys have entered a territory better served by a forum. One subscription gets you access to the cafe, announcements, n00b section, teachers, core functions, etc. While a forum lacks the convenience of using your e-mail client, it does offer a better organization and clearer interface to where the information should be posted.
If the mail interface disappears, so will I. I have never seen a worth-while web discussion interface. Ever. jcc
On 2008 Jul 11, at 9:54, Jonathan Cast wrote:
On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 08:47 -0400, Chad Wilson wrote:
From previous experience with this sort of thing (the expansion of usage for a list(s)), I am thinking you guys have entered a territory better served by a forum. One subscription gets you access to the
If the mail interface disappears, so will I. I have never seen a worth-while web discussion interface. Ever.
Agreed with a caveat: I want the ability to track the forum with either email summaries (preferred) or an RSS feed; having to manually check a web site periodically sucks and is an additional time sink I can't really afford, and will de facto result in my leaving the community. -- brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] allbery@kf8nh.com system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university KF8NH
From: haskell-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Benjamin L.Russell
The only issue is the name of the new list, though: it would seem a better idea to keep the name mnemonic and short, with the suffix following "Haskell-" within three or four characters. Typing "haskell-beginner@haskell.org" seems a bit of a hassle; "haskell-edu@haskell.org" seems much better.
(as I approach the bike-shed, paint-tin and brush ready...) Is there a requirement that the name be prefixed with haskell-? We have cabal@haskell.org, gui@, libraries@, etc. So why not just beginner@haskell.org, novice@haskell.org, or noob@haskell.org? Alistair ***************************************************************** Confidentiality Note: The information contained in this message, and any attachments, may contain confidential and/or privileged material. It is intended solely for the person(s) or entity to which it is addressed. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient(s) is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. *****************************************************************
Bayley, Alistair wrote:
From: haskell-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Benjamin L.Russell
The only issue is the name of the new list, though: it would seem a better idea to keep the name mnemonic and short, with the suffix following "Haskell-" within three or four characters. Typing "haskell-beginner@haskell.org" seems a bit of a hassle; "haskell-edu@haskell.org" seems much better.
(as I approach the bike-shed, paint-tin and brush ready...)
Is there a requirement that the name be prefixed with haskell-? We have cabal@haskell.org, gui@, libraries@, etc. So why not just beginner@haskell.org, novice@haskell.org, or noob@haskell.org?
Quite true. Any objections to beginner@haskell.org? Cheers, Simon
starter@haskell.org? "beginner" sounds so humble... Cheers, Peter Verswyvelen www.anygma.com
-----Original Message----- From: haskell-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Neil Mitchell Sent: vrijdag 11 juli 2008 17:33 To: Simon Marlow Cc: Bayley, Alistair; haskell@haskell.org Subject: Re: [Haskell] Re: on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education- related Haskell-related mailing list
Hi
Quite true. Any objections to beginner@haskell.org?
Google suggests that about 1 in 50 web pages spell "beginner" wrong, using only one "n". Given that many Haskeller's are not native speakers, could we perhaps pick something that is easier to spell correctly?
Thanks
Neil _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
On Jul 11, 2008, at 10:25 PM, Peter Verswyvelen wrote:
starter@haskell.org?
"beginner" sounds so humble...
newto@haskell.org ? novice@haskell.org ? Jur
Cheers, Peter Verswyvelen www.anygma.com
-----Original Message----- From: haskell-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell- bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Neil Mitchell Sent: vrijdag 11 juli 2008 17:33 To: Simon Marlow Cc: Bayley, Alistair; haskell@haskell.org Subject: Re: [Haskell] Re: on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education- related Haskell-related mailing list
Hi
Quite true. Any objections to beginner@haskell.org?
Google suggests that about 1 in 50 web pages spell "beginner" wrong, using only one "n". Given that many Haskeller's are not native speakers, could we perhaps pick something that is easier to spell correctly?
Thanks
Neil _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
takeoff@haskell.org? budding@haskell.org? junior@haskell.org? classroom@haskell.org? factorial@haskell.org? Regards, Abhay On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 2:23 PM, jur <jur@cs.uu.nl> wrote:
On Jul 11, 2008, at 10:25 PM, Peter Verswyvelen wrote:
starter@haskell.org?
"beginner" sounds so humble...
newto@haskell.org ? novice@haskell.org ?
Jur
Cheers,
Peter Verswyvelen www.anygma.com
-----Original Message-----
From: haskell-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Neil Mitchell Sent: vrijdag 11 juli 2008 17:33 To: Simon Marlow Cc: Bayley, Alistair; haskell@haskell.org Subject: Re: [Haskell] Re: on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education- related Haskell-related mailing list
Hi
Quite true. Any objections to beginner@haskell.org?
Google suggests that about 1 in 50 web pages spell "beginner" wrong, using only one "n". Given that many Haskeller's are not native speakers, could we perhaps pick something that is easier to spell correctly?
Thanks
Neil _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
On 2008 Jul 11, at 11:33, Neil Mitchell wrote:
Quite true. Any objections to beginner@haskell.org?
Google suggests that about 1 in 50 web pages spell "beginner" wrong, using only one "n". Given that many Haskeller's are not native speakers, could we perhaps pick something that is easier to spell correctly?
Stealing a page from FreeBSD: questions@haskell.org ? -- brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] allbery@kf8nh.com system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university KF8NH
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:34:19 -0400, Dan Licata <drl@cs.cmu.edu> wrote: How about help@haskell.org? -- Benjamin L. Russell
On Jul11, Simon Marlow wrote:
Quite true. Any objections to beginner@haskell.org?
How about beginners@haskell.org ? I think the plural conveys more of a sense of community than the singular.
Best suggestions I've seen so far: beginners@haskell.org (I like the plural better too, thanks Dan) help@haskell.org questions@haskell.org let me know your preference (privately, unless you have anything else to add to the discussion). Cheers, Simon
On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:04:04 +0100, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
Best suggestions I've seen so far:
beginners@haskell.org (I like the plural better too, thanks Dan) help@haskell.org questions@haskell.org
let me know your preference (privately, unless you have anything else to add to the discussion).
Thank you, Simon. Personally, I think that there are problems with all three names, though: beginners@haskell.org: Although this name definitely captures the flavor of the mailing list and also conveys a sense of community (with the addition of the 's,' thanks to Dan Licata), the double-n is easy to mistake for beginners, and a new user would probably have difficulty remembering whether the name was "beginner" or "beginners" if a sudden question arose after six months of absence from the mailing list. help@haskell.org: As Angelos Sphyris pointed out in a private e-mail message (which I later forwarded to this mailing list), this seems to suggest a general help archive/source complete with manuals, faqs, examples etc. More importantly, it does not suggest a sense of community. questions@haskell.org: This name limits the scope of the list to questions, as opposed to general beginner topics, and does not seem appropriate for non-question beginner-related issues. Also, this name does not convey a sense of community. Since this new list is about beginner issues for Haskell, a functional programming language, ideally, the name should simultaneously be short, easy to remember, academic, suggest general beginner issues, and, if possible, suggest a sense of community. The best alternatives that I have come up with are the following: alpha@haskell.org: This name denotes a Greek letter used in mathematics, is associated with a beginning, is academic, but does not really suggest a sense of community. lambda-alpha@haskell.org: This name denotes two Greek letters used in mathematics, ordered so as to denote a beginning of the lambda-calculus, and is academic, but does not really suggest a sense of community. haskell-alpha@haskell.org: This name denotes a Greek letter used in mathematics, is associated with a beginning, is academic, and suggests a sense of community. haskell-lambda-alpha@haskell.org: This name is simply too long to remember. In sum, I suggest haskell-alpha@haskell.org. Any better alternatives? -- Benjamin L. Russell
Well, if somebody can't spell "beginners" correctly, I highly doubt they will get "alpha" right... Certainly if they drive an Alfa Romeo car ;) Even so, another alternative would just be "begin@haskell.com"...
-----Original Message----- From: haskell-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Benjamin L.Russell Sent: maandag 14 juli 2008 13:18 To: haskell@haskell.org Subject: [Haskell] Re: on starting Haskell-Edu, a new education-related Haskell-related mailing list
On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:04:04 +0100, Simon Marlow <marlowsd@gmail.com> wrote:
Best suggestions I've seen so far:
beginners@haskell.org (I like the plural better too, thanks Dan) help@haskell.org questions@haskell.org
let me know your preference (privately, unless you have anything else to add to the discussion).
Thank you, Simon.
Personally, I think that there are problems with all three names, though:
beginners@haskell.org: Although this name definitely captures the flavor of the mailing list and also conveys a sense of community (with the addition of the 's,' thanks to Dan Licata), the double-n is easy to mistake for beginners, and a new user would probably have difficulty remembering whether the name was "beginner" or "beginners" if a sudden question arose after six months of absence from the mailing list.
help@haskell.org: As Angelos Sphyris pointed out in a private e-mail message (which I later forwarded to this mailing list), this seems to suggest a general help archive/source complete with manuals, faqs, examples etc. More importantly, it does not suggest a sense of community.
questions@haskell.org: This name limits the scope of the list to questions, as opposed to general beginner topics, and does not seem appropriate for non-question beginner-related issues. Also, this name does not convey a sense of community.
Since this new list is about beginner issues for Haskell, a functional programming language, ideally, the name should simultaneously be short, easy to remember, academic, suggest general beginner issues, and, if possible, suggest a sense of community. The best alternatives that I have come up with are the following:
alpha@haskell.org: This name denotes a Greek letter used in mathematics, is associated with a beginning, is academic, but does not really suggest a sense of community.
lambda-alpha@haskell.org: This name denotes two Greek letters used in mathematics, ordered so as to denote a beginning of the lambda-calculus, and is academic, but does not really suggest a sense of community.
haskell-alpha@haskell.org: This name denotes a Greek letter used in mathematics, is associated with a beginning, is academic, and suggests a sense of community.
haskell-lambda-alpha@haskell.org: This name is simply too long to remember.
In sum, I suggest haskell-alpha@haskell.org. Any better alternatives?
-- Benjamin L. Russell
_______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
Hello Peter, Monday, July 14, 2008, 3:24:36 PM, you wrote:
Well, if somebody can't spell "beginners" correctly, I highly doubt they
i really doesn't understand the problem - they will select from list, not type it. i think that beginners, novice or smth like this should be good - people will join this list, learn haskell basics and then switch to "adult" list. it's usual practice - novices learn herself, then remain in a list for a while answering new newbies questions, then leave it going to "adult" list. so we will had there people that will learn each other and don't make too-smart answers to simple questions so, i propose novice(s), newbie(s), beginner(s) -- Best regards, Bulat mailto:Bulat.Ziganshin@gmail.com
"Peter Verswyvelen" <bf3@telenet.be> writes:
Well, if somebody can't spell "beginners" correctly, I highly doubt they will get "alpha" right... Certainly if they drive an Alfa Romeo car ;)
For the beginning Haskell programmer owning an Italian sports car, I cannot resist suggesting "alpha-mail@haskell.org"... -k -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
[snip] beginners@haskell.org: Although this name definitely captures the flavor of the mailing list and also conveys a sense of community (with the addition of the 's,' thanks to Dan Licata), the double-n is easy to mistake for beginners, and a new user would probably have difficulty remembering whether the name was "beginner" or "beginners" if a sudden question arose after six months of absence from the mailing list.
Don't we need to register to be able to post to the ml ? Don't we need to see (and the copy(/paste)) the address in the first place ? Don't we get an automated response with some info (including a reminder of the ml address) ? The issue of mispelling a mail address is a bit weak imo. Cheers, Thu
minh thu wrote:
[snip] beginners@haskell.org: Although this name definitely captures the flavor of the mailing list and also conveys a sense of community (with the addition of the 's,' thanks to Dan Licata), the double-n is easy to mistake for beginners, and a new user would probably have difficulty remembering whether the name was "beginner" or "beginners" if a sudden question arose after six months of absence from the mailing list.
Don't we need to register to be able to post to the ml ? Don't we need to see (and the copy(/paste)) the address in the first place ? Don't we get an automated response with some info (including a reminder of the ml address) ? The issue of mispelling a mail address is a bit weak imo.
And can't we set up aliases in case this really turns out to be a problem? Groetjes, Martijn.
Benjamin L.Russell wrote:
beginners@haskell.org: Although this name definitely captures the flavor of the mailing list and also conveys a sense of community (with the addition of the 's,' thanks to Dan Licata), the double-n is easy to mistake for beginners, and a new user would probably have difficulty remembering whether the name was "beginner" or "beginners" if a sudden question arose after six months of absence from the mailing list.
I don't think the usability of the email address is that important, given that most computer users are quite happy with near-random hard-to-spell email addresses they find cool, and mail clients help with address management. Maybe technical measures could be taken to handle misaddressed mails if there is a need for it? Much more important seems the semantic (exactly: pragmatic) content of the list name, which should both invite a new haskeller to join the list, and spring to mind in typical usage scenarios like having questions or wondering about Haskell.
Since this new list is about beginner issues for Haskell, a functional programming language, ideally, the name should simultaneously be short, easy to remember, academic, suggest general beginner issues, and, if possible, suggest a sense of community. The best alternatives that I have come up with are the following:
I disagree with the goal that the name should be academic. An academic name could create an entrance barrier both for non-academic beginners and non-topgrade students who search for homework-help@haskell.org, not insights@haskell.org. As another source of confusion, alpha is not only used for the beginning, but also for leaders (see [1]). A quick web search revealed that quite a number of programming languages have beginners@... lists. Interestingly, their description invariantly includes the term "a friendly place", which may be nice for a beginner to read before subscribing, but is somewhat misleading in the case of the Haskell community, which is a big friendly place in itself. Tillmann [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_%28biology%29
On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:39:11 +0200, Tillmann Rendel <rendel@daimi.au.dk> wrote:
Benjamin L.Russell wrote: [...]
A quick web search revealed that quite a number of programming languages have beginners@... lists. Interestingly, their description invariantly includes the term "a friendly place", which may be nice for a beginner to read before subscribing, but is somewhat misleading in the case of the Haskell community, which is a big friendly place in itself.
Indeed. I just did a search on the Internet, and came up with four examples of either existing mailing list names including beginners/tutor, or posts by users looking for such mailing lists; viz.: "ocaml_beginners : Ocaml Beginners": http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners/#ans ocaml_beginners@yahoogroups.com "Do [sic] a "Python beginners e-mail list" exist?": http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2005-July/330615.html Nabble - fink-beginners forum & mailing list archive: http://www.nabble.com/fink-beginners-f4237.html Tutor Info Page: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor The naming trend seems to be as follows: For beginner lists, as opposed to announcement-related lists: Iif the name of the domain does not include the language-name, then the list name is <language-name>_beginners@domain-name For example, in the case of OCaml (see the aforementioned "ocaml_beginners : Ocaml Beginners" at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners/#ans), it is ocaml_beginners@yahoogroups.com However, if the name of the domain includes the language-name, then the language-name is truncated from the list name, as follows: tutor@<language-name>.org For example, in the case of Python (see the aforementioned "Tutor Info Page" at http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor), it is tutor@python.org Since the overall response seems to be to prefer "beginners" for the list-name here, logic would seem to dictate that the optimal choice would be beginners@haskell.org If so, we would then have the following mailing list: Name of List: Beginners Address of List: beginners@haskell.org Description: Discussion about beginner issues in learning Haskell (per Claus Reinke's emphasis on a "list charter," in his response at 22:28 on 2008/07/14); viz.:
What is needed is a discussion of list charter. The only thing I've seen was "Discussion about beginner questions and issues in teaching Haskell", with the implicit assumption that those beginners are non-academic students, but in some form of education/school. )
If this is acceptable to everyone, I am considering suggesting the above to Simon. Any comments, responses, suggestions, etc.? -- Benjamin L. Russell
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:20:51 +0900, Benjamin L.Russell <DekuDekuplex@Yahoo.com> wrote:
[...]
The naming trend seems to be as follows:
For beginner lists, as opposed to announcement-related lists:
Iif the name of the domain does not include the language-name, then the list name is
<language-name>_beginners@domain-name
For example, in the case of OCaml (see the aforementioned "ocaml_beginners : Ocaml Beginners" at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners/#ans), it is
ocaml_beginners@yahoogroups.com
However, if the name of the domain includes the language-name, then the language-name is truncated from the list name, as follows:
tutor@<language-name>.org
For example, in the case of Python (see the aforementioned "Tutor Info Page" at http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor), it is
tutor@python.org
Since the overall response seems to be to prefer "beginners" for the list-name here, logic would seem to dictate that the optimal choice would be
beginners@haskell.org
This is just a minor point, but I have been rereading through the posts in this thread, and saw again a post by Paul Hudak mentioning "haskell-beginners" as a possibility (04:38 on 2008/07/09); viz.:
Using Simon's names, I think that there is a greater need for haskell-beginners than for haskell-edu. Despite the friendly people on haskell-cafe, it is very intimidating, and very busy (sadly, I've mostly stopped reading it for the latter reason). I don't think that haskell-cafe serves well at all as a forum for beginners, whereas it might serve just fine as a forum for instructors.
Then I looked through the list of mailing list names at haskell.org (see "haskell.org Mailing Lists" at http://haskell.org/mailman/listinfo), and discovered that there seems to be a kind of pattern where names that do not begin with "haskell" seem to be devoted to specific compilers/tools/packages/etc. not concerning general Haskell, whereas names that do seem to be devoted to general Haskell issues. In keeping with this trend, it might be a good idea to have "haskell-beginners@haskell.org" after all, in line with "haskell@haskell.org" and "haskell-cafe@haskell.org", to differentiate the new general Haskell beginners list from more specialized lists such as "blogs@haskell.org", "ffi@haskell.org", "hat@haskell.org", and "helium@haskell.org". The only exception that I can find to this trend on that page is "wikibook@haskell.org", which stalled a few months after launch, and specialized in the Wikibook anyway. So perhaps "haskell-beginners@haskell.org" is not such a bad idea after all.... Any comments? -- Benjamin L. Russell
2008/7/15 Benjamin L. Russell <DekuDekuplex@yahoo.com>:
Then I looked through the list of mailing list names at haskell.org (see "haskell.org Mailing Lists" at http://haskell.org/mailman/listinfo), and discovered that there seems to be a kind of pattern where names that do not begin with "haskell" seem to be devoted to specific compilers/tools/packages/etc. not concerning general Haskell, whereas names that do seem to be devoted to general Haskell issues.
I don't think there's much of a pattern, and the haskell-i18n list is a good counter-example. haskell-cafe could just as easily have been cafe; there's no real need for the haskell- prefix. All of the lists are @haskell.org, so there's redundancy in the prefix. IMO, the only lists that need a prefix are haskell-fr, haskell-prime, and haskell. And even haskell could be renamed to announce. You yourself expressed concern over the length of the address haskell-beginners@haskell.org. My vote is still for beginners@haskell.org Alistair
Alistair Bayley wrote:
haskell-cafe could just as easily have been cafe; there's no real need for the haskell- prefix. All of the lists are @haskell.org, so there's redundancy in the prefix. IMO, the only lists that need a prefix are haskell-fr, haskell-prime, and haskell. And even haskell could be renamed to announce.
While the email addresses used to run the list would be sensible with beginners@haskell.org etc., the tag inserted into Subject:-lines should still contain "Haskell" to avoid confusion with beginners list for other subjects. Maybe "beginners@haskell.org" with a "[Haskell beginners]" tag would work, if that is possible. I see various patterns for the name of mailing lists: (1) discussed topic as in haskell-art (2) style of communication as in haskell-cafe (3) target audience as in ghc-users While (1) and (2) assume that members of the community decide for every posting where to send it to, (3) assumes that every member of the community picks a single mailing list to belong to. Personally, I find this mix of posting-based and poster-based association confusing, and would prefer to have only names of type (1). E.g., I don't understand the idea of the "ghc-users" mailing list: I'm a ghc user, so should I ask questions about Haskell in haskell-cafe or in ghc-users? Probably in haskell-cafe, except my question is about ghc-specifics. So why is ghc-users not named ghc-specific? But for beginners, a poster-based association may be easier to manage: A beginner knows that he or she is a beginner, but may not know which topic a question belongs to. (And may not be willing to select an appropriate mailing list for every new posting). Tillmann
beginners@haskell.org (I like the plural better too, thanks Dan)
That might be useable, but is likely to suffer from the variety of Haskell beginner backgrounds and the resulting variety of initial interests (topics that got them interested in Haskell, or that would help them to get up to speed with Haskell): - abstract maths: categorical connections - numeric maths: optimizations/libraries/profiling/.. - logic: Curry-Howard/advanced types - web programming: database libraries/cgi/html/xml/.. - sml/ocaml: how do I do my higher-order functors and side-effects in Haskell? - biocomputing: how do I do high-volume data harvesting efficiently in Haskell? - etc, etc If you throw all Haskell beginners into a single list, won't you end up with, well, haskell-cafe@? IIRC, the subject of this thread was about a specific group of Haskell beginners and their projected needs, in particular, that they might find beginning easier if isolated from the buzz of haskell-cafe@, in a community of similar interests, different from those of other Haskell beginners. Using topics to focus interests within a single haskell-cafe would at least have a chance of getting there (the one drawback: I can't think of a way to ensure that beginner's emails have a [newbie] keyword, so they might not see their own mails), and would make the helpful subscribers of said list available for answers (they might even be able not to mention unsafePerformIO, higher-order type class dodomorphisms, and the like in a [newbie] thread?-). You could, of course, try beginners@, and whenever someone gets no answers there, direct them to try haskell-cafe@. But would you want to force the threads in beginners@ to be interest-independent, to avoid scaring other beginners with specialist discussions?
help@haskell.org questions@haskell.org
These seem misleading - noone is promising help/answers on that list, and many subscribers are happy to provide both on other lists.
Personally, I think that there are problems with all three names, though: .. Since this new list is about beginner issues for Haskell, a functional programming language, ideally, the name should simultaneously be short, easy to remember, academic, suggest general beginner issues, and, if possible, suggest a sense of community. The best alternatives that I have come up with are the following:
IMHO, all of this is seriously starting to move in wrong directions. What is needed is a discussion of list charter. The only thing I've seen was "Discussion about beginner questions and issues in teaching Haskell", with the implicit assumption that those beginners are non-academic students, but in some form of education/school. If that is the target, with the idea that teachers can point their students someplace suitable, and students/teachers can meet others in the same boat, then edu@haskell or school@haskell might work. Claus
On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:28:53 +0100, "Claus Reinke" <claus.reinke@talk21.com> wrote:
[...]
What is needed is a discussion of list charter. The only thing I've seen was "Discussion about beginner questions and issues in teaching Haskell", with the implicit assumption that those beginners are non-academic students, but in some form of education/school.
How about the following mailing list description? "Discussion about beginner issues in learning Haskell" Would this be suitable?
If that is the target, with the idea that teachers can point their students someplace suitable, and students/teachers can meet others in the same boat, then edu@haskell or school@haskell might work.
Yes, I partially agree with haskell-edu@haskell.org, but this has already been discussed (by Paul Hudak, at 04:38 on 2008/07/09); viz.:
I would also be interested in a haskell-edu list, but as I said before I don't think the demand for it is as great as that for haskell-beginners.
The overall reasoning by users against that name was that it was not suitable because it confused teaching and learning, without clearly separating the two issues. Would you have an argument that I could use to refute this theory? -- Benjamin L. Russell
What is needed is a discussion of list charter. The only thing I've seen was "Discussion about beginner questions and issues in teaching Haskell", with the implicit assumption that those beginners are non-academic students, but in some form of education/school.
How about the following mailing list description? "Discussion about beginner issues in learning Haskell"
Would this be suitable?
It differs from/is more general than your original interests/aims: 2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education. The primary audience of this new mailing list would be [educators and] students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming. but whether that is a good thing or not, I couldn't say. I was merely suggesting that thinking in more detail about the charter and possible users of that list might help you see whether it is likely to serve your interests, or serve other needs in the community. I had the feeling that, while most posters were positive about a new list/forum, they actually had quite different ideas regarding the purpose/target audience for that list, each assuming that this list would be "their" list. Names can follow once the purpose is clear.
The overall reasoning by users against that name was that it was not suitable because it confused teaching and learning, without clearly separating the two issues. Would you have an argument that I could use to refute this theory?
"There is no teaching, only contexts for learning"?-) The argument was that lists for those engaged in learning and those engaged in providing suitable learning contexts should be separate, not that edu@ couldn't be used as a name for either list (although it might not be specific enough for (2), and too specific for your new charter). Claus
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:24:44 +0100, "Claus Reinke" <claus.reinke@talk21.com> wrote:
What is needed is a discussion of list charter. The only thing I've seen was "Discussion about beginner questions and issues in teaching Haskell", with the implicit assumption that those beginners are non-academic students, but in some form of education/school.
How about the following mailing list description? "Discussion about beginner issues in learning Haskell"
Would this be suitable?
It differs from/is more general than your original interests/aims:
2) To provide a primarily non-research-oriented discussion forum to serve the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell who wish to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded a liberal arts education, as opposed to an engineering/mathematics/science-oriented education.
The primary audience of this new mailing list would be [educators and] students in a liberal arts curriculum who are interested in studying Haskell for studying functional programming.
but whether that is a good thing or not, I couldn't say. I was merely suggesting that thinking in more detail about the charter and possible users of that list might help you see whether it is likely to serve your interests, or serve other needs in the community. I had the feeling that, while most posters were positive about a new list/forum, they actually had quite different ideas regarding the purpose/target audience for that list, each assuming that this list would be "their" list. Names can follow once the purpose is clear.
In that case, how about the following, more detailed charter: "Beginner-level discussion about primarily non-research-oriented topics serving the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell wishing to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded liberal arts education" Although admittedly rather long-winded, this charter is more detailed, and better elucidates the purpose of the list.
The overall reasoning by users against that name was that it was not suitable because it confused teaching and learning, without clearly separating the two issues. Would you have an argument that I could use to refute this theory?
"There is no teaching, only contexts for learning"?-) The argument was that lists for those engaged in learning and those engaged in providing suitable learning contexts should be separate, not that edu@ couldn't be used as a name for either list (although it might not be specific enough for (2), and too specific for your new charter).
That's what I thought, too, until I got the following response to the contrary from a reader in private e-mail:
Not sure if another list is a good idea or not, but if it is a good idea, it should be beginner focused.
The only issue is the name of the new list, though: it would seem a better idea to keep the name mnemonic and short, with the suffix following "Haskell-" within three or four characters. Typing "haskell-beginner@haskell.org" seems a bit of a hassle; "haskell-edu@haskell.org" seems much better.
haskell-learn@haskell.org ?
haskell-edu just seems to say the wrong thing, for the sole reason that it's short, which seems like a bad idea.
Until I received this message, I was originally interested in haskell-edu@haskell.org, because I felt that "haskell-edu" suggested a discussion forum for both beginner-level students and non-research educators of Haskell, where non-research-related beginner-level questions would be encouraged. However, some other readers felt that this scope would be too broad, insufficiently beginner-focused, potentially educator-focused, and that it could potentially conflict with that of Haskell-Cafe (despite the fact that Haskell-Cafe is de facto a research-oriented discussion forum). So then, after numerous tosses and turns and helpful suggestions, I agreed to the alternative haskell-beginners@haskell.org. If you have a sufficiently convincing and overriding argument for the original haskell-edu@haskell.org name, by all means, please let us know! -- Benjamin L. Russell
Benjamin L.Russell <DekuDekuplex@Yahoo.com> writes:
In that case, how about the following, more detailed charter:
"Beginner-level discussion about primarily non-research-oriented topics
This part is good. Friendly and inviting - nothing scary here.
serving the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell wishing to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded liberal arts education"
.. but I don't quite understand the rationale for this. Why the restrictions? It seems strange to me to have a list named "beginners", but disallow e.g. comp.sci. students or people learning Haskell as a non-first language. But perhaps I misunderstood the intended purpose? -k -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
Ok, this is getting tedious guys. How about the following course of action: 1. Start "beginners@haskell.org" now. There seems to be more-or-less a consensus on this name. 2. Take all further discussion about the list's charter, etc. to the new list. 3. If decision is made to rename the list, kill "beginners@haskell.org", create the new list and repeat with step 1. Cheers, Pat. On 16/07/2008, at 7:38 AM, Ketil Malde wrote:
Benjamin L.Russell <DekuDekuplex@Yahoo.com> writes:
In that case, how about the following, more detailed charter:
"Beginner-level discussion about primarily non-research-oriented topics
This part is good. Friendly and inviting - nothing scary here.
serving the needs of non-computer-science students of Haskell wishing to focus on Haskell as a language for learning programming as part of a well-rounded liberal arts education"
.. but I don't quite understand the rationale for this. Why the restrictions? It seems strange to me to have a list named "beginners", but disallow e.g. comp.sci. students or people learning Haskell as a non-first language.
But perhaps I misunderstood the intended purpose?
-k -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:13:37 +1000, Patryk Zadarnowski <pat@jantar.org> wrote:
Ok, this is getting tedious guys.
How about the following course of action:
1. Start "beginners@haskell.org" now. There seems to be more-or-less a consensus on this name.
2. Take all further discussion about the list's charter, etc. to the new list.
3. If decision is made to rename the list, kill "beginners@haskell.org", create the new list and repeat with step 1.
Agreed; I think so, too. I'll send out the suggestion to Simon right away. -- Benjamin L. Russell
beginners@haskell.org (I like the plural better too, thanks Dan) help@haskell.org questions@haskell.org
FWIW, the GNU projects typically have mailing lists called "bug" for bug reports, and "help" for general discussions. So "help" sounds pretty good. But... bikeshed ahead! Stefan
participants (30)
-
Abhay Parvate -
ajb＠spamcop.net -
Alistair Bayley -
Andrew Wagner -
Bayley, Alistair -
Benjamin L. Russell -
Benjamin L.Russell
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Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH -
Bulat Ziganshin -
Chad Wilson -
Claus Reinke -
Dan Licata -
Dave Bayer -
Isaac Dupree -
Jonathan Cast -
jur -
Ketil Malde -
Manuel M T Chakravarty -
Martijn van Steenbergen -
Michael Vanier -
minh thu -
Neil Mitchell -
Patryk Zadarnowski -
Paul Hudak -
Peter Verswyvelen -
Philippa Cowderoy -
Simon Marlow -
Sittampalam, Ganesh -
Stefan Monnier -
Tillmann Rendel